Racism, Prisons and the Future of Black America

By Manning Marable <mm247@columbia.edu>, Along the
Color Line, August 2000

There are today over two million Americans incarcerated in federal and
state prisons and local jails throughout the United States. More than
one-half, or one million, are black men and women. The devastating
human costs of the mass incarceration of one out of every thirty-five
individuals within black America are beyond imagination. While civil
rights organizations like the NAACP and black institutions such as
churches and mosques have begun to address this widespread crisis of
black mass imprisonment, they have frankly not given it the centrality
and importance it deserves.

Black leadership throughout this country should place this issue at
the forefront of their agendas. And we also need to understand how and
why American society reached this point of constructing a vast prison
industrial complex, in order to find strategies to dismantle it.

For a variety of reasons, rates of violent crime, including murder,
rape and robbery, increased dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s. Much
of this increase occurred in urban areas. By the late 1970s, nearly
one half of all Americans were afraid to walk within a mile of their
homes at night, and 90 percent responded in surveys that the U.S.
criminal justice system was not dealing harshly enough with
criminals. Politicians like Richard M. Nixon, George Wallace and
Ronald Reagan began to campaign successfully on the theme of Law
and Order. The death penalty, which was briefly outlawed by the
Supreme Court, was reinstated. Local, state and federal expenditures
for law enforcement rose sharply.

Behind much of anti-crime rhetoric was a not-too- subtle racial
dimension, the projection of crude stereotypes about the link between
criminality and black people. Rarely did these politicians observe
that minority and poor people, not the white middle class, were
statistically much more likely to experience violent crimes of all
kinds. The argument was made that law enforcement officers should be
given much greater latitude in suppressing crime, that sentences
should be lengthened and made mandatory, and that prisons should be
designed not for the purpose of rehabilitation, but punishment.

Consequently, there was a rapid expansion in the personnel of the
criminal justice system, as well as the construction of new
prisons. What occurred in New York State, for example, was typical of
what happened nationally. From 1817 to 1981, New York had opened 33
state prisons. From 1982 to 1999, another 38 state prisons were
constructed. The state’s prison population at the time of the
Attica prison revolt in September 1971 was about 12,500. By 1999,
there were over 71,000 prisoners in New York State correctional
facilities.

In 1974, the number of Americans incarcerated in all state prisons
stood at 187,500. By 1991, the number had reached 711,700. Nearly
two-thirds of all state prisoners in 1991 had less than a high school
education. One third of all prisoners were unemployed at the time of
their arrests. Incarceration rates by the end of the 1980s had soared
to unprecedented rates, especially for black Americans. As of December
1989, the total U.S. prison population, including federal
institutions, exceeded one million for the first time in history, an
incarceration rate of the general population of one out of every 250
citizens.

For African Americans, the rate was over 700 per 100,000, or about
seven times more than for whites. About one half of all prisoners were
black. Twenty-three percent of all black males in their twenties were
either in jail or prison, on parole, probation or awaiting trial. The
rate of incarceration of black Americans in 1989 had even surpassed
that experienced by blacks who still lived under the apartheid regime
of South Africa.

By the early 1990s, rates for all types of violent crime began to
plummet. But the laws, which sent offenders to prison, were made even
more severe. Children were increasingly viewed in courts as adults,
and subjected to harsher penalties. Laws like California’s
three strikes and you’re out eliminated the possibility
of parole for repeat offenders. The vast majority of these new
prisoners were non-violent offenders, and many of these were convicted
of drug offenses that carried long prison terms. In New York, a state
in which African Americans and Latinos comprise 25 percent of the
total population, by 1999 they represented 83 percent of all state
prisoners, and 94 percent of all individuals convicted on drug
offenses.

The pattern of racial bias in these statistics is confirmed by the
research of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which found that
while African Americans today constitute only 14 percent of all drug
users nationally, they are 35 percent of all drug arrests, 55 percent
of all drug convictions, and 75 percent of all prison admissions for
drug offenses. Currently, the racial proportions of those under some
type of correctional supervision, including parole and probation, are
one-in-fifteen for young white males, one-in-ten for young Latino
males, and one-in-three for young African-American
males. Statistically today, more than eight out of every ten
African-American males will be arrested at some point in their
lifetime.

The latest innovation in American corrections is termed special
housing units (SHU), but which prisoners also generally refer to
as The Box. SHUs are uniquely designed solitary confinement cells, in
which prisoners are locked down for 23 hours a day for months or even
years at a time. SHU cellblocks are electronically monitored, pre-
fabricated structures of concrete and steel, about 14 feet long and 8
feet wide, amounting to 120 square feet of space. The two inmates who
are confined in each cell, however, actually have only about 60 square
feet of usable space, or 30 square feet per person.

All meals are served to prisoners through a thin slot cut into the
steel door. The toilet unit, sink and shower are all located in the
cell. Prisoners are permitted one hour exercise time each day
in a small concrete balcony, surrounded by heavy security wire,
directly connected with their SHU cells. Educational and
rehabilitation programs for SHU prisoners are prohibited.

As of 1998, New York State had confined 5,700 state prisoners in SHUs,
about 8 percent of its total inmate population. Currently under
construction in Upstate New York is a new 750 cell maximum security
SHU facility, which will cost state taxpayers $180 million. Although
Amnesty International and human rights groups in the U.S. have widely
condemned SHUs, claiming that such forms of imprisonment constitute
the definition of torture under international law, other states have
followed New York’s example. As of 1998, California had
constructed 2,942 SHU beds, followed by Mississippi (1,756), Arizona
(1,728), Virginia (1,267), Texas (1,229), Louisiana (1,048) and
Florida (1,000). Solitary confinement, which historically had been
defined even by corrections officials as an extreme disciplinary
measure, is becoming increasingly the norm.

The introduction of SHUs reflects a general mood in the country that
the growing penal population is essentially beyond redemption. If
convicted felons cease to be viewed as human beings, why should they
be treated with any humanity? This question should be elevated and
discussed in every African-American and Latino neighborhood, community
center, religious institution and union hall across this country.
Because the overwhelming human casualties of this racist leviathan are
our own children, parents, sisters and brothers. Those whom this
brutal system defines as being beyond redemption are ourselves.

What are the economic costs for American society of the vast expansion
of our prison-industrial complex? According to criminal justice
researcher David Barlow at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee,
between 1980 and 2000, the combined expenditures of federal, state and
local governments on police have increased about 400 percent.
Corrections expenditures for building new prisons, upgrading existing
facilities, hiring more guards, and related costs, increased
approximately one thousand percent. Although it currently costs about
$70,000 to construct a typical prison cell, and about $25,000 annually
to supervise and maintain each prisoner, the U.S. is currently
building 1,725 new prison beds per week.

The driving ideological and cultural force that rationalized and
justifies mass incarceration is the white American public’s
stereotypical perceptions about race and crime. As Andrew Hacker
perceptively noted in 1995, Quite clearly, `black crime’ does
not make people think about tax evasion or embezzling from brokerage
firms. Rather, the offenses generally associated with blacks are those
...involving violence. A number of researchers have found that
racial stereotypes of African Americans—as violent,aggressive,hostile and
short-tempered—greatly influence whites’ judgments
about crime. Generally, most whites are inclined to give black and
Latino defendants more severe judgments of guilt and lengthier prison
sentences than whites who commit identical crimes. Racial bias has
been well established especially in capital cases, where killers of
white victims are much more likely to receive the death penalty than
those who murder African Americans.

The greatest victims of these racialized processes of unequal justice,
of course, are African-American and Latino young people. In April
2000, utilizing national and state data compiled by the FBI, the
Justice Department and six leading foundations issued a comprehensive
study that documented vast racial disparities at every level of the
juvenile justice process. African Americans under age 18 comprise 15
percent of their national age group, yet they currently represent 26
percent of all those who are arrested.

After entering the criminal justice system, white and black juveniles
with the same records are treated in radically different
ways. According to the Justice Department’s study, among white
youth offenders, 66 percent are referred to juvenile courts, while
only 31 percent of the African- American youth are taken there. Blacks
comprise 44 percent of those detained in juvenile jails, 46 percent of
all those tried in adult criminal courts, as well as 58 percent of all
juveniles who are warehoused in adult prison. In practical terms, this
means that for young African Americans who are arrested and charged
with a crime, that they are more than six times more likely to be
assigned to prison that white youth offenders.

For those young people who have never been to prison before, African
Americans are nine times more likely than whites to be sentenced to
juvenile prisons. For youths charged with drug offenses, blacks are 48
times more likely than whites to be sentenced to juvenile
prison. White youths charged with violent offenses are incarcerated on
average for 193 days after trial; by contrast, African-American youths
are held 254 days, and Latino youths are incarcerated 305 days.

What seems clear is that a new leviathan of racial inequality has been
constructed across our country. It lacks the brutal simplicity of the
old Jim Crow system, with its omnipresent white and
colored signs. Yet it is in many respects potentially far more
devastating, because it presents itself to the world as a system that
is truly color-blind. The black freedom struggle of the 1960s was
successful largely because it convinced a majority of white middle
class Americans that it was economically inefficient, and that
politically it could not be sustained or justified.

The movement utilized the power of creative disruption, making it
impossible for the old system of white prejudice and power to function
in the same old ways it had for decades. For Americans who still
believe in racial equality and social justice, we cannot stand silent
while millions of our fellow citizens are being destroyed all around
us. The racialized prison industrial complex is the great moral and
political challenge of our time.

For several years, I have lectured in New York’s famous Sing
Sing prison, as part of a master’s degree program sponsored by
the New York Theological Seminary. During my last visit several
months ago, I noticed that correctional officials had erected a large
yellow sign over the door at the public entrance to the prison. The
sign reads: Through these doors pass some of the finest corrections
professionals in the world. I asked Reverend Bill Webber, the
director of the prison’s educational program, and several
prisoners what they thought about the sign. Bill answered bluntly,
demonic. One of the M.A. students, a 35-year-old Latino named
Tony, agreed with Bill’s assessment, but added, let us face
the demon head on. There are now over two million Americans who
are incarcerated. It is time to face the demon head on.

Dr. Manning Marable is Professor of History and Political Science, and
the Director of the Institute for Research in African-American
Studies, Columbia University. Along the Color Line is
distributed free of charge to over 350 publications throughout the
U.S. and internationally. Dr. Marable’s column is also
available on the Internet at <http://www.manningmarable.net>.

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